Friday, 28 August 2015

Selection of Classic Amiga Software in 2015

This week I decided to catch up on some of many AmigaOS3.x software that has been released in 2015 but I haven't tried out yet! I used AmigaOS3.9 on my Amiga 4000T to try them out.

My Amiga 4000T had remained relatively untouched with new software for a while now, so I thought I would update it, starting with MUI (Magic User Interface).

On my system, I have MUI 3.8 registered. Like a lot of people who registered relatively late on, my MUI key is a "special one" given to everyone who registers now since apparently the author Stefan Stuntz can't generate new ones as his Amiga 3000 stopped working...

MUI is needed for lots of programs, and the last update of MUI for AmigaOS 3.x was in 2006. It has continued development as MUI 4.0 on MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 as well.

Language of the Amigaguide document files is requested - English for me of course:

Installation completed:

As prompted I reboot, then check the MUI prefs to see the updated MUI v4.0 program settings:

Close up view of the MUI Preferences window in MUI 4:

MUI Screen Settings:

MUI Images settings:

I do get regular prompts to increase the stack to minimum 32000. For most programs the stack can be adjusted in the Information window attached to the program's icon.

Now let's take a look at Directory Opus 5.9 for AmigaOS 3.x. Originally released in 2014, this update is an update and bug fix from the original 1998 commercial Directory Opus 5.82 source code from Adelaide developer Jonathan Potter (GP Soft). The latest beta version of 5.91 is April 2015. I am looking at stable 5.90 release today.

Update 31/8/2015 - Stable release v5.91 has now been released for AmigaOS3.x (and other platforms too) - you can download it from here.

I have had a look at Directory Opus 5.9 several times on this blog for AmigaOS 4.1 on the X1000 (here, here and here).

But this is the first time I have installed it on the Amiga 4000T - I download 5.90 from the Source Forge page here, and below is the extracted drawer on my Amiga 4000T:

Closer look the Directory Opus 5.9 drawer contents:

I need to add the DOpus: assign into the s:user-startup file, as highlighted below:

The initial load of DOpus 5.9 looks a bit ordinary - it uses the Workbench prefs and opens on it's own screen using my Voodoo 3 PCI card, but uses the standard Topaz fonts...

Reconfiguration now underway - I covered a lot of this in the previous Directory Opus 5.9 blog entries I linked higher up if you want to look into the detailed configuration steps:

After finishing the fonts changes, background change and lister preferences to my liking, things are starting to look good:

My USB stick (Sony16GB) mounts and shows up fine under DOpus 5.9 when inserted into the A4000T USB port connected to the Deneb card:

As people who regularly use Directory Opus 5.9 (or earlier versions ) know, it is very configurable and there is a LOT you can do with it. I will leave it like this for now, but no doubt I will play with it again!

Moving into 2015 games now, Boxx 2 is a platform game by Lemming880 available on Classic Amiga systems and downloadable for free on Aminet, as HD install or ADF version.

The game is colourful and retro:

Let's get into Level 1:

The game is very playable and easy to get into. Collecting coins is the goal, and if this sounds a bit like a game similar to a certain plumber then you would be mostly right:

Unlike that game though, Boxx 2 has levers to unlock sections, water you can go through and is just a fun game to play:

Evidently I need to practice more because I quickly reached Game Over - not sure what happened! I used to be great at platform games!

Boxx 2 is a lot of fun to play and free - definitely give it a go!

Next up I wanted to try out the latest version of LoView 2.90 on Classic Amiga, released in 2015. This program was written by Simone "Tuxedo" Monsignon. I read the readme first to make sure I knew what to do for the install.

The readme says, install the Hollywood plugins, copy the folder where you like and run it. LoView is a program written with Hollywood. It won't work unless you have all the pre-requisites installed first, which I didn't. I got plenty of errors come up running the Installer program. What it should say also is it needs the following installed first:

1. Install all the latest July 2015 released Hollywood plugins for AmigaOS 3.x on Aminet - search for HWP_ to find them (MUI Royale is one of the required ones):

While installing MUI Royale (one of the Hollywood plugins), you will then find you need to install some other MUI class files too.

This leads on to the next step to install LoView 2.90..

2. Install the latest version of TextEditor.mcc and TheBar.mcc and NList.mcc, available on Aminet. You can install codesets.library too if you need, but in my case I don't since I work in English.

3. Then install the LoView program using the Install icon in the extracted folder - the installer is fairly straightforward:

Fairly straightforward stuff until you get to this step - not sure why this step (for the AmigaOS4.1+ version) is included in the AmigaOS 3.x version installer. Just say No here:

The new preferences tool for LoView will then launched:

This prefs editor allows you to customise LoView to your personal tastes and there are plenty of options, including changing the default file types to use LoView, which is very handy indeed (Reboot needed for that). Press Save when finished in here:

Installation is now completed:

Here is the LoView drawer with the installation completed:

Here is the main LoView program itself running on the Amiga 4000T - I think I am still missing something as two icons on the top right don't appear right - AISS perhaps? Will look at this later on:

Having used and covered LoView extensively on AmigaOS4.1 on my X1000 previously, it is nice to be back in a familiar image viewer on the Classic Amiga too:

I should make mention also of A-Eon's Personal Paint 7.3a released for Classic Amiga in late 2014. This is the result of the fine efforts of Andy "broadblues" Broad.

I already had the AmigaOS 4 version on the X1000, but this week I finally bought the Classic Amiga version to put on my Amiga 4000T.

You can buy Personal Paint 7.3a from AMIStore if you have an AmigaOS4 system, and if not you can also buy it from ppaint.com. There is an older version 7.2 you can download for free on the same site.

Once launched, Personal Paint asked which resolution to launch in - I want to take advantage of my Voodoo3 card in the Amiga 4000T so I use the 1280x1024 resolution. Personal Paint is limited to 256 colours, so no high colour support yet.

Here is the main Personal Paint 7.3a program once opened. The interface should be familiar to Deluxe Paint users, and of course Personal Paint users from past versions before A-EON bought the rights to the software to upgrade it:

When importing pictures that are different resolution and colour depth to the current screen, it gives you options around which mode to switch it to:

It will then work it's magic to change the size and colour depth to match the screen:

There are lots of functions in Personal Paint, more than I could possibly cover in a blog post like this, but it really does do most things you would like to do with an image, even animating it:

There is a comprehensive Amigaguide document included with Personal Paint, which includes tutorials and plenty of help:

Here is one more image I imported, rendered in 256 colours in Personal Paint 7.3a - the image conversion is quick for a Classic Amiga and result quite good:

Of course what coverage of Classic Amiga software released would ignore the demos released in 2015! Head over to Pouet's demoscene website here to download the latest productions for Amiga (and other platforms too).

Here is some shots of Dekadence's demo at Assembly 2015 demo party, called Carbon Based. It is a great demo and worthy winner:

The next demo I wanted to mention is Desire's demo, also from Assembly 2015. It is great to see good demos still coming out on Classic Amigas - I wish we had some on the NG Amigas too though!

So, as you can see, there is still plenty of interesting software being released for Classic Amiga in 2015! This list of software is only a small sample of what is available out there, and it is great to see the work that has gone into them! Please try them out if you haven't already!

Thank you to the people who continue to write interesting software for Classic and NG Amiga systems in 2015 - please keep it up! :-)

Great writeup, Epsilon. I've been spending a little more time with my classic Amigas lately, so found some good info here. Have been enjoying DOpus5 on my X1000 for a while... now I need to go back and install that gem on my A4000 as you have done.